LIV Golf trade rules explained as Saudi-backed league launches its first transfer window
The LIV Golf roster could well have a new look come its next event in Houston in a month’s time, after the breakaway league’s mid-season transfer window opened on Monday.
Following the formation of Jon Rahm’s Legion XIII in February the LIV setup now boats 13 teams containing four players each, with two wildcards in Hudson Swafford and Anthony Kim making up the 54-man roster. With no event for four weeks, these 13 teams now have the opportunity to trade between them.
As revealed by LIV commentator Jerry Foltz last weekend, the transfer window will be open for one month, giving team captains until LIV Houston on June 7 to get any possible deals they want to make over the line.
Any transfer business will need to be straight trades between two teams, with no transfer fees being exchanged as part of any deals. Wildcards Swafford and Kim are therefore ineligible to be included. The one-month period will also allow teams to extend the current contracts of their players too.
Those who have deals expiring at the end of the current campaign will enter free agency and are at risk of losing their spot on the Saudi-backed series for 2025. However if their captain wants to extend their current contract ahead of time, this can be done during the next month.
It must be noted however that such extensions would become void if the player in question was to finish in one of the four drop zone spots at the end of the individual campaign. Last year Brooks Koepka’s brother Chase was one of four relegated, alongside Jediah Morgan, James Piot and Sihwan Kim.
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Brooks Koepka in action at LIV Singapore
Koepka’s Smash GC franchise are no strangers to the LIV trading system, after the five-time major champion swapped out Matthew Wolff with 2023 LIV champion Talor Gooch, who was previously playing for the RangeGoats. Koepka infamously fell out with Wolff partway through last season, describing his former teammate as ‘talent wasted’.
He then completed an astute piece of business, luring in LIV’s most in-form man in 2023 in Gooch, with Wolff heading the other way to Bubba Watson’s RangeGoats. Watson’s franchise also acquired the services of former PGA Tour star Peter Uihlein who joined from Dustin Johnson’s 4Aces in the winter.
Heading the other way to Johnson’s setup as part of the deal was Harold Varner III. It is suspected that those towards the bottom of the LIV team standings will be more likely to complete some mid-season business over the next month, with Kevin Na’s Iron Heads currently sat bottom.
Na plays alongside Scott Vincent, Danny Lee and Jinchiro Kozuma, but the four-man team are yet to make their mark in 2024. Just above them is the Majesticks, however with the all-European containing three co-captains in Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter and Henrik Stenson, the chances of much movement within their roster appears minimal. One man who could be included in any deal is Englishman Sam Horsfield.